Featured Artist For April: Ale Di Gangi

We knew nothing about Ale beyond his brilliantly colored images of European life we received in the initial rush of submissions for the Pixels At An Exhibition show (jurors voted in three of his works), and a number of subsequent pictures he has sent in over the past few months.

We knew we were in the presence of talent, but we didn’t know how much talent … And then we read his bio tonight.

Friends, say hello to a Renaissance man!

With his first five pictures, we were struck with Ale’s unique vision: lyrical, bold, and full of life, with touches of wry humor, wistfulness, and drama animating his photos. (I will confess my belief: Ale is among good company here. So many multi-talented people who have discovered and are pioneering this new medium and art form.)

Ale will be sharing pictures old and new for the month of April. Thank you, Ale! And here is the bio he sent:

Born in Firenze (Italy) in 1966 from a family of many artist relatives, I found out about my passion in photography in my mid-30s.

My first exhibition was a group performance of poetry/photography/ambient music held in 1986, videotaped and then archived by the Pecci Contemporary Museum of Art of Prato. Because it seems like I am not able to conduct a life without producing “outputs” of some kind, photography came in after my involvment with music (played in a band and released records on various national and international labels, also cofounded an indie label), poetry (released books and published on various anthologies and magazines) and along with video (one of my short films has been
featured at the 2009 Cannes Short Corner Film festival).

One day years ago I stumbled on Lomo cameras and that catched my eye; since then I have been avidly taking photos on all kinds of cameras, from Polaroids through Holgas to digital DSLR. When I bought my first iPhone I did not pay any attention to the camera that came with it, until I started stumbling on photos on Flickr taken with iPhones by some of my contacts, and I started realizing that if lo-fi film cameras are so interesting, then the iPhone could be just their evolution. So I started experimenting and to my pleasure I found a new camera to use and enjoy to an unexpected extent, supported by all kinds of photo apps on the iPhone and on my desktop.